We need to update our Land Use and Circulation Elements and Oppose Measure H

By Jan Marx

A lot of changes have occurred since 1994, when we last updated our Land Use and Circulation Element. We badly need to bring it up to date, prevent future ballot box land use planning like Measure H and craft a renewed vision for the future.

As a real property, environmental and land use attorney, planning commissioner and twenty year participant in the city planning process, on and off council, I am uniquely qualified to orchestrate this process as Mayor. I recently organized a Local Government Commission Conference on Climate Change, as it would specifically effect our county because of my concern for this issue. Our land use plan must be updated, if we are to respond with resilience to climate challenges ahead.

In the update, we should implement sustainable "Smart Growth"** (defined below) and Ahwahnee Principles, which we adopted in 2006. These principles have guided planning for the Margarita Area and Orcutt Area Specific Plans. If elected, I will work hard to see these principles are enacted in policies in the 2011 Land Use and Circulation Element Updates.

The fact that the Circulation Element has not been updated for nearly 15 years may well have made some well meaning people so impatient with the planning process that they have put an initiative on the ballot dead-ending Prado Road, Measure H. As explained below, I have many reasons to oppose it.

Ballot Box land use planning is generally bad planning. A number of specific plans taken been approved over the past ten years, all relying on the future existence of East-West connectivity between Higuera and Broad north of Tank Farm Road. It is a mitigation for traffic congestion impacts on the South Street "road diet," the Margarita Area Specific Plan, the Airport annexation area, the Broad Street corridor and the Orcutt Area Specific Plan. There has never been an environmental review or traffic study of just cutting off Prado Road, as the initiative would do.

I oppose Measure H because there will be a multitude of unintended consequences if it passes. It will obstruct the "smart growth," transit oriented plans for affordable and work force housing in the Margarita Area. Cutting off Prado Road would increase vehicle miles traveled and traffic congestion in existing neighborhoods. If anyone had asked me my opinion before launching this initiative, I would have counseled against it.

We need to restore faith in the land use and circulation planning process by listening to the community and encouraging all residents to participate in updating our Elements.

• *What is Smart Growth? As I use that term, it means policies which encourage a compact community footprint and reject pave-and-sprawl development based on fantasies of cheap oil and energy abundance, an infinite supply of land and unlimited natural resources. Smart Growth, by contrast, is based on energy efficiency, alternate transportation and renewable resources. Smart Growth is downtown and neighborhood-friendly, and transit, bicycle and pedestrian oriented. It promotes a mix of housing, commercial and retail uses. It preserves open space, wildlife habitats, historical properties, scenic views, and parkland and values public as well as private property. Smart Growth avoids what the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) calls "Significant Unavoidable Impacts" when better alternatives are possible. Smart Growth is not "no growth," but sustainably paced growth which respects and enhances our quality of life.